Most retail environments accept cash and credit or debit cards for customer payment of goods or services. Cash transactions require an attendant to make and give change, thereby slowing down throughput of customers. This may be particularly important in retail stores that have heavy customer traffic. Cash transactions also require retail stores to carefully account for such cash to minimize theft, such as counting and making manual deposits into banks. Such deposits often occur in unsafe conditions at night, after the retail store is closed and the cash on-hand is collected and counted.
Credit and debit transaction cards have increased payment speeds over the use of cash, but use of such transaction cards can cause timing delays in their own right. Customers have to reach into their purse or wallet to find their transaction card. Sometimes, magnetic card stripes loose their information requiring the attendant to manually enter the card number and expiration date. Often, transaction card authorization requires communication to a remote host network, taking additional time to receive authorization.
Wireless payment systems, using transponders or other wireless payment devices, such as RFID, have been developed to improve the payment speeds for retail transactions. A wireless payment device may contain an ID that uniquely identifies a customer to the customer's account. The wireless payment device may contain resident memory with storage of a cash balance from which payment can be subtracted. However, use of such wireless payment systems requires communication readers, comprised of electronics and an antenna, for wirelessly communicating with wireless payment devices used by customers for payment. Such communication readers should be located where customers tender payment for purchases. Such communication electronics can be cumbersome to install given the limited amount of space in retail store environments. For instance, quick service restaurants (QSR) have cash registers positioned close together with a minimal amount of space between each. Many of these same QSRs have “drive-thru” window pickups that also have counters with limited space. The counters within restaurants should be clear to allow an attendant to deliver food and other items to the customer. Convenience store counters also have limited space since they often contain cash registers and other goods for sale to customers.
Therefore, a need exists to provide communication readers that are conveniently located and accessible to customers using wireless payment devices for payment and do not occupy large amounts of space on or proximate to the retail counter.